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The port of Vizagapatam in the East of India on the Coromandel Coast, was a centre of Anglo Indian furniture and textile manufacture and export in the latter half of the 18th Century. This elaborately decorated knee-hole desk with a sliding and removable compartment is an example of the popular blending of western forms with local craft techniques which utilized the available ivory and exotic woods. The large densely foliated frieze patterns, based on indigenous plants, mirror that of the Vizagapatam Chintz fabrics that were popular throughout Europe at the time. This desk was owned by Sir Thomas Rumbold (1736-1791), Governor of Madras.